Chess
by oppugnorhr12
Summary: Ron & Hermione were playing a game of chess when Hermione let slip something she never intended Ron to hear. Set in Grimmauld Place, the summer before they start their 5th year. Completely canon & FLUFFY. :


Hermione winced as she watched Ron's rook annihilate her pawn into one small, miserable pile of rubble. She instantly regretted having agreed to the idea of playing chess with him. But then again, he had been so persistent with his pestering that she could find no other way to shut him up. She was left with no choice but to abandon her Transfiguration review (which she had been doing in preparation for the beginning of term next week) and just give into his wishes.

"Totally barbaric, as always," she sighed ruefully, propping her arm on the table and resting her chin in her hand.

Ron grinned. "That's what makes it fun!"

She rolled her eyes and pondered her next move. She knew, however, that any move she attempted at any point would be a futile one. Ron always won. _Always_. "I don't even know why I bother playing with you," she said, moving one of her pieces across the board.

"What do you mean?" he asked innocently, instantly countering her move.

"_That's_ what I mean," she said, frowning, as one of his chess pieces started violently pounding hers with a club. "You always win. It's pointless."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is someone _jealous_ of my abilities?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "No," she said bitterly, as she instructed one of her pieces to move to a certain square. "All I'm saying is that yes, people must accept that losing is always a possibility when playing any game, but to _always_ lose to you at chess—"

Ron laughed. "You don't _always_ lose."

"Yes, I do!" she said defiantly, crossing her arms. She hated failure.

"No," he argued, moving one of his pieces across the board. "Third year, sometime in November. Gryffindor Common Room. You won."

Hermione stared at him, disbelieving. "Really?"

"Yeah, don't you remember? It was right after we've finished one of our Potions essays, and you agreed to take a break from homework by playing. Harry was there too, but he was busy reading his Quidditch book."

A look of recognition dawned on her face. "Oh, yeah," she laughed silently, shaking her head. "I can't believe I forgot that."

"Well I certainly haven't."

"I can see that."

He looked at her. "It was the first time I've lost to you on one of the_ very _few things I'm actually better than you at."

She grinned inwardly at the indirect compliment, and tapped one of her pieces to move forward.

"I'd never forget it." He studied the pieces left on the board and instructed one of his pawns to take a square. "I took it rather harshly, actually."

Hermione curiously tilted her head to one side.

"I spent that night feeling terrible. You could ask Harry. I sat up almost the entire night, with my blanket over my head, sulking. I can't even remember how many times he whacked me with his pillows, telling me how pathetic I looked, frowning in my blanket, refusing to move."

She doubled over and burst out laughing. The image of Ron sitting wrapped up in a blanket like a big frowning baby brought her endless amounts of joy. "_Why_ on earth would losing chess to _me_ make you feel that way?"

"Because!" he scowled, "you always beat me at everything. _Everything_, Hermione. _Except_ chess. That was supposed to be _my_ thing, and I felt glad that I was better than you at _something_, at least. But then you go ahead and beat me at that too."

She shook her head and smiled at him. "But that was only _once_! And you're better than me at a lot of things, Ron, you just don't recognize it."

He grunted.

She rolled her eyes at him and took another look at the board. "Well," she said as she motioned to another one of her chess pieces to move. "Your reaction to your loss that night was definitely most peculiar."

He scowled again and stuck his tongue out at her.

She laughed, folding her arms on the table, watching him as he contemplated his next move. Although his reaction truly _was_ peculiar, there also was something else in imagining Ron's pouty face all wrapped up in his maroon blanket, with his adorable ginger hair probably sticking out from it in all directions. "And cute," she murmured distractedly, staring dazedly at the chessboard.

His ears perked up. "Cute?" he smiled, looking a bit bewildered.

Hermione turned a violent shade of red. She didn't think he would hear that.

"You think _I'm _cute?" he asked once more, leaning forward, eyes glinting.

She swallowed. There was definitely no way out of this. And _yes,_ she thought, _yes, Ron, you're cute. You and your stupid red hair and the annoying freckles scattered over your cheeks! And your ears, especially when they turn that stupid shade of pink when we walk under the sun. Yes, you're _adorable_, and I _hate_ admitting it, but you just _are_._ "A little," she whispered, still feeling significantly hot in the face.

Ron said nothing but smirked and turned his attention back to the chessboard.

"I mean," she said, straightening her back and lifting her chin to regain composure, "when you're all bundled up in your blanket—not that I've _actually_ seen it—but you know, picturing it, it could, I think, be cute," she cleared her throat, feeling her face grow warm again. "_Hypothetically_, that is." _What?_ She mentally cursed herself into eternal damnation. _I have never, in my entire life, said anything so unintelligible before! _

She watched for his reaction, but he did not even look up at her.

_Merlin's pants, he knows!_ She felt her head spin._ He _knows_ I fancy him and it's all my fault! I gave it away. Oh, God, he's going to be awkward around me now. Hermione Granger, all the professors at Hogwarts were wrong about you; you most definitely are the dimmest girl to have ever roamed the planet!_

Ron remained quiet for the next few minutes, and they continued their chess game in complete silence. Hermione felt even more miserable for every second that passed. She barely could concentrate on their game as her brain buzzed with the many different plans she tried to make on taking back all that she said.

"Hermione," Ron said so suddenly, that it made Hermione jump and almost cause her chess pieces to topple onto the floor.

"Y-yes?" She said, grateful that his eyes never left the chessboard.

"D'you know that thing you do," he looked up briefly at her and looked back down, "when you read?"

She stared blankly at him. "Huh?"

"You bite your lip and sort of knit your brows a little," he prodded one of the chess pieces to move to the left. "And you twirl your hair around your finger sometimes."

She blinked, her face still exuding a vacant expression. She sometimes caught herself doing that while reading, yes, but she was vaguely aware of it. "Yeah, I guess." She had no idea why Ron had to bring this up at this particular moment.

Ron looked up her and mumbled a string of incoherent syllables, which, to her, indistinctly sounded like "_a thin skew_".

She scrunched her face up. "What?"

"I think," he said, a bit louder, averting his eyes to the floor, "it's," he shook his head, "_you're_," he paused, giving her a wary glance, "_cute_… when you do that."

She felt her face grow warm again, and she gaped at him as he resumed staring at the chessboard.

His ears were pink.

She found them adorable.

He glanced up at her again.

She caught his eye and smiled at him.

He sheepishly smiled back.

And as they resumed their game of chess, Hermione found that she'd stopped caring whether she lost to Ron in this particular game of chess or not. As far as she was concerned, with her heart doing all these flips in her chest, it already felt like she'd won.


End file.
